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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27914005">fulminate</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderingalonelypath/pseuds/wanderingalonelypath'>wanderingalonelypath</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Miraculous Lesbians [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Miraculous Ladybug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Adrienne agreste - Freeform, Adrienne finds out in a pretty bad way, Angst, Bad Parent Gabriel Agreste, Child Abuse, Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth Identity Reveal, Gabriel Agreste's A+ Parenting, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Plagg wants to murder Gabriel Agreste 24/7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 19:15:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,750</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27914005</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderingalonelypath/pseuds/wanderingalonelypath</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Adrienne finally pushes back, and everything falls apart.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir &amp; Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Miraculous Lesbians [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1844098</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>106</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>fulminate</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“It’s out of the question, Adrienne!”</p><p>“But <i>why</i>?”</p><p>If there was one thing to know about Gabriel Agreste, is that you should never, ever argue with him, especially if you were Adrienne Agreste. He was cold and relentless, and you would never end up with what you wanted. She knew this, and yet for some reason she couldn’t stop the words from pouring from her mouth, futile as they might be.</p><p>Honestly, she felt like every conversation, even ones that should have been simple and easy, were like uphill battles.</p><p>A permission slip. She just needed him to sign a permission slip to take a field trip that was barely an hour outside of the city, less than that if you were driving a decent car. Quick enough that she could get back in almost no time, whether she needed to return as Adrienne or Chat Noir. She needed five seconds and a signature, and her father didn’t even give the slip half a glance before refusing.</p><p>And maybe, on any other day, any other week, she would’ve given up with a defeated sigh and trudged back to her room to send a disappointing text to the group chat that no, she wouldn’t be joining Alya, Nino, and Mari on the outing. But this past week, this past <i>month</i> had just been a continual kick in the face. Photoshoot after Chinese lesson after Akuma attack, and she could count on two hands the number of times she had to cancel plans with her friends. Not to mention the last <i>four</i> Akumas had been in the middle of the night or at dawn, for Kwami’s sake. She was tired and irritated and for the first time in her life, she was giving in to that anger and actually pushing back against her father.</p><p>“It’s just a field trip! Why can’t you just give me this one thing?!” He didn’t even look up from his tablet, and she clenched her hands into fists so hard she felt her nails actually breaking skin. “I barely ask for anything! I always do what you want! I, I go to photoshoots, I take Chinese, and piano, and fencing and hang out with <i>Lila</i> all because it’s what you want! Why can’t you do something I want for once?” She could feel Nathalie hovering behind her, obviously about to pull her back and tug her from the room but she wasn’t having it. She was seeing red. She stalked forward until she was standing right next to him, hands in fists, teeth bared in a snarl so rough she almost thought she had accidentally transformed and she had her fangs.</p><p>He finally looked up at her, taking that pompous, disapproved posture that she feared almost as much as she loathed it. His lips were turned down and his eyes were tight; likely the only emotion she’d be getting from him, even while she was yelling in his face. Sometimes it felt like she lived with a marble statue rather than a father. “You will stop this foolishness at once, Adrienne. Maybe I should cease to allow you to attend that school of yours; it is obviously the reason for your attitude.”</p><p>She felt all the breath leave her body and be replaced with what she could only call the purest rage, because here they were again. This is what it always came back to; this was the noose he could always trust to hang her. This was the button that he could always push to have her fall in line. It sent fear down her spine like nothing else, and he knew it. He knew her biggest fear was losing what she managed to find in these last two years. The friends she made, that warm environment she felt when she walked into class and saw Kim and Alix arm wrestling, Nathaniel sketching, Mari designing, or Nino and Alya bent over her phone scrubbing footage from the last Akuma attack. That was her Achilles heel.</p><p>But this time, instead of her conceding with fear, she nearly <i>hissed</i> with rage, because enough was enough. She was done with him holding this axe over her neck.</p><p>“You can’t just use that to make me follow your orders every time! I’m not your employee, I’M YOUR DAUGHTER!”</p><p>He scoffed, pushing his glasses higher on his face with a finger. “Exactly. You are my daughter, and I know what is best for you, so you will do as I say.” He tried to keep his tone calm but she could hear the tremor of anger in his voice, the way his other hand was tensed behind his back. </p><p>“Maman would never treat me like this.”</p><p>
  <i>SMACK.</i>
</p><p>And suddenly she was on the ground, bleeding.</p><p>The side of her face was stinging and she could taste blood in her mouth; she raised her hand to touch it and dimly realized her bottom lip was split. <i>His ring.</i> She thought dazedly, looking up at him from where she was sprawled. He was shaking his hand, as if it hurt <i>him</i>. “Wonderful.” He murmured. “Now we’ll have to postpone the Fall shoot until your lip heals and you’ll take longer in makeup for the next two weeks.” He gave her a disapproving frown.</p><p>All she could do was sit there, and breathe.</p><p>“You will not return to school on Monday.”</p><p>And then Gorilla was lifting her from the floor with gentle hands, leading her out the door and all the way to her room. She was placed inside the door, and Nathalie handed her an ice pack, silently, as always, because she never speaks unless Gabriel gives her a voice. She made an aborted movement with her hand, as if she wanted to comfort her, but eventually left her room, closing the door with a gentle click behind her.</p><p>There were two seconds of silence before Plagg nearly ripped himself out of her shirt pocket, spitting and seething. “Just say the word, kit. Say the word and I’ll Cataclysm his ass to dust!” He was zipping around, almost in a frenzy, and all Adrienne could do was lean against the wall and tremble.</p><p>“Kit?”</p><p>She didn’t realize she was staring at the floor until Plagg was tugging her chin up with his paws, face twisted with a worry she didn’t think she’d seen since Master Fu has transferred the Miracle Box to Ladybug. Her lip stung something fierce and she realized she had started crying at some point. “Talk to me, Adrienne.”</p><p>“I-” She choked on a breath. “I can’t do it, Plagg. I can’t do it again, I can’t go back to how things were before. I can’t stay tr-trapped in the house again.” She shook her head violently, dislodging her Kwami from where he was still holding her chin. “I’ll die, Plagg. I’ll die if I do it again.” And maybe she was being overdramatic but she was getting flashbacks to Sandboy, to iron bars getting smaller and smaller and smaller, and what if she never heard Marinette’s stutter again? If she never heard Alya teasingly call her ‘Sunshine’ again? If she never split a chicken salad sandwich with Nino, shared a pair of headphones to listen to his newest mix, sink into the easy arm he throws around her shoulder?</p><p>She can’t lose them. She can’t. The loneliness will kill her. She wouldn’t be able to live as a prized songbird.</p><p>“Breathe, Kit, breathe,” Plagg was rambling, waving his arms helplessly.</p><p>She started to breathe and then she was breathing too fast. The ice pack slid out of her hand and thudded to the floor and she was <i>shaking</i>, sixteen and rich and beautiful and a <i>superhero</i> and she was shaking in her own home.</p><p>But this hadn’t been home in a long time.</p><p>And just like that, she was angry again. How dare he? How dare he control her like this? She’s been burying her head in the sand for years, biting her lip and clenching her fists and just taking it because she thought she had no other choice, because she knew that when it came down to it her father was steel and she was glass, and she would always, always break if she was faced against him.</p><p>But that was Adrienne before.</p><p>Adrienne now? She got up at all hours of the night and faced down supervillains, she threw herself into danger and <i>died</i> to protect the people of Paris, she leaped over rooftops and jumped off buildings like she was born to do it. She laughed and she loved and she fought and, Goddammit, she was going to <i>fight</i> now.</p><p>She sucked in a harsh breath and turned so abruptly that she scared Plagg, who barely had time to zip back into her shirt before she was throwing the door open. She was expecting to have to fight past the Gorilla but her doorway was empty and the halls were dark. He was nowhere to be seen and the only light was coming from the crack of the door to her father’s office.</p><p>All the better.</p><p>She tried to think of her plan as she went down the steps but her mind was a swirling mass of anger and hurt and fear and soon enough she was standing just outside the door, cracked just enough to let her see Nathalie and her father standing together but not enough to reveal herself. She reached for the handle but froze with indecision, violent will dimming in the face of her father, again, like it always does.</p><p>And that, as they say, is where it all began.</p><p>Or maybe that’s where it ended.</p><p>Before she could pull the door open, she heard snatches from the conversation within and stilled her hand just in time. “...affect the plan?” Nathalie was saying, and she felt Plagg stir in her pocket, staying hidden but she could feel tiny cat ears pricking up against her chest.</p><p>“Surely not.” Her father replied. “She’ll stay confined to her room most of the time, and when she’s not, she will be at lessons or photo shoots.” She grit her teeth, hand circling around the knob this time before he continued. “She will not notice when I send out Akumas any more than she did before, and I will let her in on the plan in due time, as we discussed before.”</p><p>Oh.</p><p>She stumbled silently away from the door, wide-eyed and shaking, lip aching.</p><p>
  <i>Oh.</i>
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